October 17, 2011

Implant location of
the micro electrode array shown on the rubrospinal tract (RST)

at the C5 level of the
rat spinal cord.

(October 17, 2011) A new wireless device to help victims of
spinal cord injury is receiving attention in the research community. Mesut
Sahin, PhD, associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at
NJIT, recently has published and presented news of his findings to develop
micro-electrical stimulators for individuals with spinal cord injuries.

The work, now in its third year
of support from a four-year, $1.4 million National Institutes of Health (NIH)
grant, has resulted in the development and testing of a technology known by its
acronym, FLAMES (floating light activated micro-electrical stimulators). The
technology, really a tiny semiconductor device, will eventually enable people
with spinal cord injuries to restore some of the motor functions that are lost
due to injury. Energized by an infrared light beam through an optical fiber
located just outside the spinal cord these micro-stimulators will activate the
nerves in the spinal cord below the point of injury and thus allow the use of
the muscles that were once paralyzed.

(October 17, 2011) Seven years after a motorcycle accident
damaged his spinal cord and left him paralyzed, 30-year-old Tim Hemmes reached
up to touch hands with his girlfriend in a painstaking and tender high-five

Hemmes, of Evans City, Pa., is
the first to participate in a new trial assessing whether the thoughts of a
person with spinal-cord injury can be used to control the movement of an
external device, such as a computer cursor or a sophisticated prosthetic arm.
The project, one of two brain-computer interface (BCI) studies under way at the
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Rehabilitation Institute,
used a grid of electrodes placed on the surface of the brain to control the
arm.

It was a unique robotic arm and
hand, designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, that
Hemmes willed to extend first toward the palm of a researcher on the team and,
a few minutes later, to his girlfriend’s hand.

October 11, 2011

(October 11, 2010) The
mathematical skills of boys and girls, as well as men and women, are
substantially equal, according to a new examination of existing studies in the
current online edition of journal Psychological Bulletin.

One portion of the new study
looked systematically at 242 articles that assessed the math skills of
1,286,350 people, says chief author Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's
studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

These studies, all published in
English between 1990 and 2007, looked at people from grade school to college
and beyond. A second portion of the new study examined the results of several
large, long-term scientific studies, including the National Assessment of
Educational Progress.

October 5, 2011

(October 5, 2011) In a first-ever demonstration of a two-way
interaction between a primate brain and a virtual body, two monkeys trained at
the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering learned to employ brain
activity alone to move an avatar hand and identify the texture of virtual
objects.

"Someday in the near future,
quadriplegic patients will take advantage of this technology not only to move
their arms and hands and to walk again, but also to sense the texture of
objects placed in their hands, or experience the nuances of the terrain on
which they stroll with the help of a wearable robotic exoskeleton," said
study leader Miguel Nicolelis, MD, PhD, professor of neurobiology at Duke
University Medical Center and co-director of the Duke Center for
Neuroengineering.

Without moving any part of their
real bodies, the monkeys used their electrical brain activity to direct the
virtual hands of an avatar to the surface of virtual objects and, upon contact,
were able to differentiate their textures.

About Me

Graduated from University of Marmara, Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Design of Industrial Products and completed her dissertation titled "A Review on the Effects of the Trends & Periods on the Structural Constructions on the Products That are Associated With Consumer Electronics" in the same department for her Master’s Degree.

Lectured at University of Anatolia, Department of Industrial Products on part-time basis. Currently, she has been lecturing on part-time basis Faculty of Arts & Science, Department of Industrial Products Design at University of Doğuş.

She was the Head of ETMK Istanbul Branch from February 2010 to June 2011.

She took part in many competitions and projects as a member of advisory board and jury. Currently, she is the acting executive officer coordinating various projects between the Industry and University at the company where she is employed.

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